Luke | Pedestrian God

How to Respond When God Answers Your Prayer

Jan 31 2018

We had a very special Sunday school class this past week as my fellow teacher, Stephanie, contrasted Zechariah’s and Mary’s responses to the Angel Gabriel when he delivered this similar messages to them:

Congratulations! You Will Have a Baby!

Wow! An angel delivered this message to Zechariah. And he responded…well…poorly to say the least.

Basically, here’s my recap of the scenario from Luke chapter 1:

Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth, have been praying for a child. An angel appears and says, “Great news! God has answered your prayer and you’re going to be a daddy! He’s going to be AMAZING and you will be SO PROUD!” But Zechariah is NOT happy so he questions Gabriel. Angered, Gabriel yells at Zechariah and takes away his ability to speak until the baby is born!

Wow! Can you imagine not being able to speak for at least 9 months? I can’t. In fact, I can’t even imagine going 9 hours without speaking. Sometimes, not even 9 minutes.

As Stephanie was teaching the lesson, I was nodding my head, remembering this story which I’ve heard most of my life. But as we exaggerated the dialogue (we really like getting into the moment), I realized something for the first time. Zechariah had been praying for a baby.

Expecting Nothing in Return

May 25 2017

It was camping day at school and all the kids were supposed to bring a flashlight. Our kid didn’t have one so I let her borrow mine. At the bus stop, I took a moment to explain to her the importance of taking care of someone else’s stuff when you are borrowing it. That means you have to bring it back exactly as it is. You cannot throw it around or draw on it. It’s not yours. And if it gets broken or lost, you have to replace it.

I gave that little speech in part because the concept of borrowing is hard to understand when you’re six. You think, it’s in my hand’s so it must be mine. I also chose this moment to teach this lesson because, well, to be real honest, I really liked that flashlight. It’s the perfect size to fit in my purse. It’s a beautiful blue color and it has LED lights. I wanted it returned to me in good shape. I was happy to lend it out, as long as I could be assured that it would return unharmed.

This past Sunday, our middle school girl’s class had a lesson on the topic, “Love Your Enemies.” The passage came from Luke 6:27-36.

And I must admit – I felt a good eye roll coming on as I sighed and thought, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love your enemies. Got it.” It was as if the Devil wanted me to shut my mind down before approaching Scripture. This passage is extremely familiar to me so I felt my mind drifting as I read along…

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